Wolf Man brings the classic Universal Monster back to the big screen, but we can expect a very different take in the new movie.
The horror reboot sees Blake (Christopher Abbott) take his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and their daughter to his remote childhood home. But the trip to salvage their marriage turns into a nightmare when they're attacked by an unseen animal.
Ahead of the movie's release this week, Abbott has revealed that his "biggest" inspiration for the role was classic '80s sci-fi horror The Fly, given how the transformation in Wolf Man compares to that movie.
"The timeline of the transformation in that movie was similar. It's a little bit more slow and steady, and you see the different stages happening and and the psychology of all the different stages," he told Digital Spy.
Related: Wolf Man lands strong first reactions
"Another one, it's very different, but even American Werewolf in London. That's a little bit more of a comedy, but in terms of just how the prosthetics look in that.
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"The Elephant Man in a lot of ways was another one. Again, the tragic nature of that, I think, was similar in this one."
It's Abbott's character Blake who undergoes the transformation in Wolf Man, and the star worked with his friend, choreographer and dancer Or Schraiber, to work out exactly how Blake would move during the transformation.
"We bounced ideas off of each other and came up with different physical things that I can use. We didn't necessarily set it, we just created a lot of ideas that we can use," he explained.
Related: Julia Garner compares Wolf Man to "seven stages of grief"
"[When] you put on the prosthetics is when it's fully formed and then that can change your original ideas because some pieces are very heavy and it forces your chest to go in and your back to shape a certain way and your chin to hang a certain way.
"It's difficult to have all that stuff on all the time, but it informs so much because it forces your hand, sometimes literally, to look a certain way."
Abbott's co-star Julia Garner also spoke to Digital Spy about how she viewed Wolf Man as the "seven stages of grief", while director Leigh Whannell explained why he referenced Saw in the new movie.
Wolf Man is released in cinemas on January 17.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
